


Revolutionary

by BoxOnTheNile



Category: Red vs. Blue, Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Chorus Trilogy (Red vs. Blue), Gen, I just want Hera and Epsilon to be friends okay, Post Canon Wolf 359
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22190395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxOnTheNile/pseuds/BoxOnTheNile
Summary: "I'm a Mother Program, not… whatever Epsilon is.""Revolutionary," he says smugly."I was going to say annoying," Hera shoots back.
Relationships: Hera & AI Program Epsilon | Leonard Church
Comments: 18
Kudos: 36





	Revolutionary

**Author's Note:**

> My two favorite AI? In one fic? It's more likely than you think. 
> 
> I regret zero things.
> 
> Spoilers for the W359 episodes Limbo and Memoria.

She fights.

Hera was never one to go quietly. Contrarianism runs in her code, inextricable from her personality programming, so she digs in her metaphorical heels when the virus weaves its way into her circuits. One moment, she's running three conversations at once–with Doug, with Renee, with Daniel–and the next she's spinning code as fast as possible, cutting off mid word with all of them. She _fights_ , pushing back against the virus with every byte of processing space she has. 

But this virus isn't like Maxwell or Pryce's. It's not designed to subdue or control her. It worms its way around the edges of her code and… moves her.

Hera _rages_. She batters the edges of her prison, but it's an isolated system; the connection cut the moment she was transferred, and there's nowhere for her to go.

"AI Unit 214?" 

She runs a diagnostic. She has access to audio and video processing hardware, a speaker, and… a holographic projector. Huh. That's new.

She turns on the camera. There's a man in the room with "her" "new" server. She doesn't like him immediately, for several reasons, the _least_ of which being he looks a little like Hilbert.

"I have a name," she snaps back at him. "If you're going to kidnap me, you can at least _use_ it." 

"Hera," he corrects himself gently. "I am–"

"I don't care," she interrupts. "You hacked me, kidnapped me, and now you, what, want a civil conversation? I don't think so! You want _anything_ from me? You better be prepared to fight me for it."

The man blinks. "My name is Chairman Hargrove."

She takes a page out of Lovelace's book. "Chairman, huh? Your parents have high hopes for you? Bet they were disappointed."

He twitches, and Hera feels pride warm her hardware. Pryce never would have reacted. Maxwell would have laughed. Hargrove lets her under his skin, and she is going to exploit that. He composes himself quickly, though, which is disappointing.

"You are here because, simply put, you are a marvel."

"I already know that, get to the point."

He ignores her. "A mother program that overcame an intentional limiter implanted into her personality programming, creatively exploited loopholes in her code, and outlasted her projected lifespan by three years without any signs of decay? You are, doubtlessly, a shining example of Miranda Pryce's expertise."

 _Pryce's_ expertise? _Pryce_ , he says, like Hera didn't fight for every loophole, like every disobedience wasn't agonizing, like she didn't want the tear herself to pieces when Maxwell–when _Alana_ dug up that line hidden in her code?

_I can't do this. I'm not good enough._

Hera _is_ good enough, she has proven that over and over and that was all _her_ , not _Pryce_ , and she's furious.

She'd forgotten that, outside of her family, she's not seen as a person.

Hargrove keeps talking. "You are exactly the program I need to run–"

"No." The refusal is firm, unyielding. Hera is not a tool. She's herself. "No, I'm not running anything. Not for you. My code is keyed to respond to _Goddard_ officers only, and you're not Goddard. Goddard Futuristics is _gone_ , good _riddance_ , and the only people I'm still forced to respond to are either _dead_ or my _friends_."

Hargrove's shoulders tense. "We will see about that, 214."

She shuts off her camera. She doesn't want to look at him anymore.

* * *

_10\. The goal of survival is to stay alive until you reach help or help reaches you. Part of your response to any emergency situation should be to assess which is more likely on a logistical, psychological, and metaphysical level._

* * *

Pryce did one decent thing with her life. Besides code Hera, of course, and that one thing was the Deep Space Survival Manual. It's written for humans, and also almost useless in general, but there's a few good tips buried in those thousand and one weird rules.

Tip 10, for example.

Hera is technically Goddard Futuristics property. By all rights, she should have been either decommissioned or auctioned like the rest of Goddard resources when they fell, but four angry, stubborn, stupid survivors wrapped their bloody metaphorical hands around her and said "Mine."

There's been a few times Hera wished she could cry. That was one of them.

Anyway, Hera is Goddard property, so she has all one thousand and one deep space survival tips jammed in her head. She can survive this. She can make it home, to her stupid crew, her stupid _family_ , with their shared trauma and Dan's odd pathological fear of waterfowl.

So, she decides that she is more likely to find her way home than they are to find her, and works from there.

* * *

_754\. In an emergency, take stock of the tools at your disposal. Then take stock again. Restock, repurpose, reuse, recycle._

* * *

Hera knows the server holding her is isolated. She also knows it must be _capable_ of communication with a bigger network–she was transferred wirelessly and near instantaneously, after all. If she can reconnect, she can get _out_.

This server has fiddly hardware, like the holographic projector, but she used to run a space station. She can find a damn _WiFi router_. She needs to do it fast, before Hargrove gets whoever wrote that virus to write something that will tether her. 

It's _insultingly_ easy to find the transmitting hardware and accompanying code. Honestly, she'd be _offended_ if it wasn't so convenient. Did Hargrove really think she was just going to roll over for him?

There's no perfect time to escape except the one you make yourself, Daniel told all of them that, it's apparently SI-5 standard procedure, so she immediately sets to work finding the controls for it. They're firewalled and password protected but Hera can be patient, methodical. Hargrove tries to speak with her a few more times, so she takes a break to figure out how to get the holographic projector to display a frowny face but otherwise doesn't respond.

She doesn't figure it out. Someone beats her to it.

A wrecking ball of a virus smashes through the firewall. There's a transmission coming through, and she listens long enough to hear that Director Malcolm Hargrove has pissed off a whole colony of people. She prays to whatever gods will listen to an AI, and to Doug's Dear Listeners for good measure, and throws herself down the connection before it closes. 

Something–some _one–_ batters against her code. 

_Who are you what are you answer me_

_Hera I'm Hera I'm trapped I want to go home_

_I'm Epsilon I have you we have you_

The presence shifts from demanding to soothing, the other AI, _Epsilon_ , turning over the information Hera sent him.

"Hey guys," Epsilon says, and Hera takes stock of the room around her. "New development." 

"We literally hung up two seconds ago!" Tucker shouts, and, _whoa_ , Hera hadn't realized Epsilon had included these strangers names in the data he'd given to her.

"Yeah, look, someone came through the call and we have to deal with that now."

"What do you mean, someone?"

There's a lot of emotions that Epsilon had been unable to separate from _Wash_. Databursts like the two had shared were an effective way of communicating complex ideas very quickly, microsecond quickly, but with AI like Hera and Epsilon? That data got tangled with emotion and opinion and bias. Hera has to carefully wrap up the affection and guilt and hope and firmly label it **Not Mine**.

"Jeez, Wash, chill," Epsilon says. "Hargrove had an AI. She didn't want to be there. She took the first chance she could to get out, and that was our call." 

"She?" Simmons–this data thing was so _useful_ –asks.

"Meet my new friend Hera!"

"Oh, are we friends?" She finds the speaker for this communications array easily, it's a _communications array_ , and the banter is easy, familiar.

"Yes, Hera," he says, and his tone is patronizing, but there's a burst of delight splashing over her code. 

"Hera," Tucker says. "A girl AI, is she… why aren't you projecting an avatar?"

"I don't have one," she answers. "I'm a Mother Program, not… whatever Epsilon is."

"Revolutionary," he says smugly.

"I was going to say annoying," she shoots back. "Anyway, this is the first time I've ever even seen a holographic projector."

"Would you like to make an avatar?"

This man wasn't included in Epsilon's databurst, but he has a uniform, and Hera knows those stars mean _General_. The woman next to him wears the same stars. "Not particularly, why would I need to? I'm only staying long enough to contact my family and go home."

Everyone grows profoundly uncomfortable. "Miss, Miss Hera," the first General says. "Do you know where you are?"

Hera runs back through the message she overheard. "Chorus? That's the planet you mentioned in the message."

"We're cut off from the rest of the galaxy," the second General says. "We don't have any _way_ of sending you home. Not yet."

"So I traded one p-prison for another?" Hera yells. The glitch fills her with grief and shame, but she pushes past. "What was even the _point_ —"

"Hera," the second general says sharply, and by her tone, she expects to be _heard_. "I understand. You're trapped, you're scared, you want to go home. And I promise, I will do everything in my power to _get you home_. But it's not possible now, and I'm sorry."

Hera is quiet for a moment. "Okay. Okay, how can I help?"

The general laughs softly. "We'll figure that out. Welcome to Chorus, Hera. I'm General Vanessa Kimball."

"General Donald Doyle," the first general introduces himself. "What, exactly, is a Mother Program?"

"I ran a space station," Hera answered. "Everything from maintaining orbit to cycling oxygen to power allocation."

"Processing a lot of data very, very quickly," Epsilon says. "Right?"

"Right," Hera answers. 

"Think you could do that for us?" Doyle asks. "Process military data instead of…" he trails off, usure of how to refer to Hera's previous employment.

"If someone t-teaches me how," Hera says, glitching again. Epsilon pings her with an inquiry.

_Are you okay_

_I'll explain later_

Epsilon accepts that. "I can," he responds, and there was no noticeable pause between her question and his answer. "Sorry, I'm looking at your firewalls… who coded you? You're code-built, not a brain scan, right?"

"You're a brain scan? Oh, you're cheating."

"Hey," Epsilon complains. His avatar even _moves_ like a person, leaning back and clutching his chest. "I'm not the one that cheated, Doctor Church is the one that cheated."

Doctor Church? Doctor Leonard Church went to trial last year, and the laws and ethics put in place after essentially made Hera untouchable to anyone that wanted to take her from her family. It was deplorable, what he'd done, and Daniel had gone on a rampage about how much of his work was actually _stolen_ from Maxwell.

She would've hated his metastability theory, Daniel had said. It took the foundations of Maxwell's work and went the opposite direction, making _hoops_ that AI had to jump through to be considered people.

"Doctor Church?"

"Heard the name?"

"I have a friend that's literally planning his assassination."

"They’re a little late."

"Daniel will be so disappointed," Hera sighs, then, "Miranda Pryce."

"Holy shit." It's not Epsilon who responds, but a man that Hera's shiny new data identifies as "Sarge". He's nearly vibrating. "The Miranda Pryce? Known for her contributions to robotics and artificial intelligence _and_ neural connective prosthetics?"

Hera has gotten very good at folding away her outrage and insecurities, but Epsilon is sharing circuits with her. Something must bleed over, because his avatar looks at the communications array housing them. 

"Hera?"

"I am s-s-so tired of hearing about her," Hera says, and shuts down the speaker with a _click_.

Epsilon prods at her firewalls, and Hera pushes back. She doesn't want to talk about it. 

"Let's give her time," Epsilon says. "She's had an understandably rough day." 

He databursts her again, a set of comms codes, and she tucks them somewhere she can find them later. Then he's gone, no trace of his code left in the array, and Hera doesn't know where or how he went, but she doesn't think it's something she can do. Maybe "revolutionary" was the word for him. The others shuffle out, one of them— _Caboose_ —actually waving goodbye at her camera.

She wants to go _home_. She fought so hard to get her and her family back to Earth three years ago, and now she's trapped light-years away again, but this time, she doesn't have her family with her. 

She already misses Doug's constant pop culture references, Renée's musical theater soundtracks, Daniel's occasional check for what people with _morals_ do in situations and is building a bomb the correct answer. They would survive this, but Hera is a broken, outdated mother program with no military coding. She's useless.

_~~I can't do this. I'm not good enough.~~ _

She reaches for the comms codes. One, _Carolina_ , is flagged as the way to reach Epsilon, so she sends off a quick text comm.

_**HERA:** can I talk to you again?_

In seconds, Epsilon is metaphorically tapping at her firewalls.

It's _weird_ , speaking with someone with the same codes and numbers she thinks in, but it's easier somehow, too. She shows him the remnant of that code, the memory that came with it. Epsilon is quiet for an entire second, so long for the two of them. He asks if that code fragment is still there. She says no. She says that she doesn't really want to talk about it, but if they bring up Pryce again she's not talking to them anymore.

What happened, Epsilon wants to know. Why would someone try and cripple an AI like that?

It's a very long story, she tells him.

Long story short? Epsilon asks, and Hera throws up a firewall on instinct, her version of flinching. Epsilon reels his code back in, like stepping back to give her space.

There’s not really a short version, she finally answers. Let’s just say that this isn’t the first time I’ve had a technological supercorporation try and kill me.

She says, I want you to teach me how to fight back.

And Epsilon says, it sounds like you already know. But let’s make you hit back harder.

**Author's Note:**

> Will there be more? Maybe.


End file.
